Friendship & Conversations: Social Skills for Teens with Autism, Anxiety, ADHD

This class will meet weekly for 30 minute sessions on a recurring basis to learn about and practice conversational skills. This course will teach greetings, initiating/maintaining conversations, using a social filter in conversations, and more. We will also discuss friendships: how to make new friends, qualities we should look for in friendships, and more. Students will have time to practice conversational skills in breakout rooms and maybe even make friends in the class! This is an ongoing class, and students can join at any time.

Class breakdown:
-Discussions about starting/maintaining conversations + conversational practice amongst classmates 
-Important qualities of friendships + discussions about success & challenges in making friends 
-How to think before we speak & use our social filter in different contexts (e.g., in person conversations, texting, challenging situations)
-Practice with conversational skills
We will cycle through these topics.

Extensive research on the effects of social skills training on children with these challenges shows that social skills instruction is effective in reducing a child's experience of school failure or rejection as well as the aggressiveness and isolation that often develop because of problems relating to others. Please note that this is a class and is not therapy.